Happy Christmas, Laughing Boy
by Warner Hedgehog
Summary: The Bat has decided to pay a visit to the Joker, but not for the usual reasons. I've adapted 'Super Criminal Blues', which starred Penguin and Catwoman (With a letter from the Riddler) into part 2.
1. Happy Christmas Laughing Boy

**Happy Christmas Laughing Boy**

It was a snowy Christmas Eve in Gotham. Charles 'Chuckles' Wilberforce was lurking near the Monarch theatre. Charles was one of Joker's henchmen but today he was hoping to carry out a little freelance blackmail, maybe a some protection racket 'work' if he could be bothered to get round to it. Joker had gone a bit quiet of late and there didn't seem to be a big 'plan' on the go, so he'd been kicking his heels and was a tad bored.

Chuckles had big aspirations though: what made those smug 'Super Criminals' so special? What was the big deal with that psychotic dwarf Penguin, or coin obsessed Two-Face? Even his own boss, the Joker was a psychiatric nightmare: half loon, half mad, 100% utterly insane. Besides all that, Chuckles didn't want to be a lowly henchman all his life: he wanted more; he wanted the fame and the money. Start small he told himself, if there's an opportunity, knock out some of the slightly bigger fish in the criminal pond. As he lurked, he saw an opportunity present itself. Gary Speed, one of Two Face's guys came out of the theatre. Gary was fairly high in Dent's organisation, and bumping him off would certainly increase a guy's rep. What's more, Gary was one of those smart ass weasel types who wormed their way to the top, rather than show any fighting skill, and he was alone. Follow the little creep down an alley and 'wham', one improved reputation.

He stayed in the shadows, watching Gary as he sauntered along. When a suitable distance opened up he started to follow, waiting for the chance to make his move. As he casually walked he checked the holster under his coat, making sure he still had his trusty pistol (silenced of course.)

Gary turned down Hangman's Alley, a twisty little path that few people used due to its reputation as a hangout for lowlifes. 'Maybe a better identity than Chuckles' he thought as he tailed Gary, 'what sort of crime boss is called Chuckles?' As he was lost in thought, contemplating names, he suddenly realised he'd lost sight of Gary. He stopped in a slight panic, wondering if this was some sort of ambush. He looked around carefully and pulled his gun out. He was about to sidle up to a wall when something grabbed his leg. In an instant he was whipped off of his feet and high into the air. He looked up or possibly down and realised he was about 40 feet in the air dangling from the edge of an apartment block. Something spun him around as he dangled upside down, and he found himself face to face with the Bat.

"Helllo Chuckles. Where's your boss these days?" growled Batman.

"I ain't telling you nuthin', Batface." replied a defiant Charles. Then he remembered his gun. He tried to aim as he hung, but the Bat flipped him around, grabbed his arms and deftly tied them together, then just for the look of it swiped his gun away, quickly dismantled it and left the bits on the rooftop, taking care to keep all the bullets and a couple of gun components. He readdressed Chuckles: "Don't try to get clever. It doesn't suit you. Where's Joker?"

"Y..y..you don't scare me Batman!" yelled Wilberforce, still trying to be tough.

"Really?" said Batman, who simply punched Chuckles in the stomach, "care to talk now?"

Chuckles coughed but still had a little resistance left, "Stuff you Bats!" he said.

Batman grabbed Charles' ankle with one hand and lifted him up and shook him. "Where is he? Don't make me have to get rough. You won't like that."

Chuckles' resistance finally took the hint and departed. "All right, all right! He's holed up with Harley in Falcone's old warehouse down by the docks."

"That wasn't so hard was it?" Batman said.

Suddenly Chuckles was in a blur again and found himself lying on his back on the roof of the building. The Bat had vanished.

* * *

Down at the docks, in a swivel chair in the admin office of Falcone's old warehouse, sat the Joker and like Chuckles earlier, he was bored. He lazily threw a dart at a picture of batman and then spun the chair around.

"Oh come on. Where's the fun in this?" he shouted at no-one in particular. He was in the middle of setting up an audacious plan: he was going to rob Gotham central bank and at the same time replace the statue of Amadeus Arkham in the park with a statue of Batman in a tutu. The one problem with setting these little japes up is that they took so much time. Half of it involved sitting about and waiting for your henchmen to do stuff.

He stood up and stalked over to the desk where a few more darts were impaled into a small Penguin figurine. He was about to throw the doll in the air when something small crashed through the skylight and split the dart in the Batman picture in two.

"What the hell?" he asked himself "Why ask me, I have no idea?" he answered.

He started to move toward it with a large degree of caution "Looks like a Baterang" he muttered.

It suddenly started to make a rapid bleeping bound, causing the Joker to leap backward.

The beeping became increasingly rapid, until it was replaced by a rather familiar song sung apparently by high pitched hamsters:

Jingle Bells

Jingle Bells

Jingle All The way

The Jokers plans,

Just will not work

On any given day

Because he knows

His henchmen are

Worth less than a dime

And of course

The Batman will

Stop him every time

The music came to a jaunty little finish, and the hamsters shouted "Happy Christmas Joker!" at the tops of their voices. The beeping returned, slow at first but building up speed rapidly. When it was almost a continual tone, the baterang exploded.

"What the bloody hell was that about?" He said to himself.

"What was what about?" asked Harley as she walked into the room.

Joker pointed to the shattered skylight and then to the charred smoking mess on the wall, "That my dear, that. Y'know I think some of me's rubbed off on the Bat." He stood there perplexed at what had just happened.

* * *

Not far away, on top of a communications tower, the Batman grinned to himself "That'll confuse him for a bit."

A voice came through on his comm set, "Is everything alright Master Bruce?"

"Yes Alfred, everything is fine. I know my job is to stop people like the Joker, but sometimes just confusing them is good enough"

"If you insist Sir. Are you coming home soon?"

"I'll be back shortly. I just have to pay a quick visit to the Penguin and I'll be on my way"

"Right you are Sir"

Bruce looked over the city and launched himself into the air. Time to find an impromptu informant.


	2. Seasons Greetings Beaky

Oswald Cobblepot was sitting in the manager's office of the Artemis Theatre in downtown Gotham. It was apparently under the ownership of one 'Henry Factoid', a fictional businessman from the Deep South who, although perfectly legal paperwork proved him to be 55 years old, had only come into existence 4 years ago. He was a useful alias as he was rarely used: you didn't want an identity that people would start looking into.

Oswald looked out of the window, while he pondered the details of his latest scheme. It was always either bloody raining or snowing in this miserable city. When you did a job that involved special equipment, it always had to be waterproof otherwise it'd be completely knackered within a day or two.

His reverie was interrupted by a commotion outside his door. His security guards were having a heated discussion with someone. The discussion got beyond heated when a couple of shouts apparently of 'You ain't getting in' rang out. The shouts were followed by a very solid thump, a short burst of gunfire followed by another heavy thump. Oswald was convinced it was the Batman again, come to ruin another well thought-out plan or at least the beginnings of one, so he readied himself in the corner with his umbrella gun. Instead, there was a gentle knock and Catwoman opened the door and came in and gave Oswald a sweet apologetic smile. "Morning Oswald. Sorry about your two heavies, but for some reason they thought they could take advantage of little old me, so I had to teach them some manners."

Penguin collected himself in record time and walked to his desk. "Fair enough: they could stand to learn a little decorum. Please excuse me for a second." He replied. He motioned for her to sit down and then picked up his desk phone and pressed a button on it. "Sharon, could you send up a couple more guards for my office? This time could we have ones who don't keep their brains in their pants?" He paused for the reply, "Oh yeah, make sure they're not as useless as the last two." Another pause, "They were beaten up in about 4 seconds flat, despite the fact they had machine guns. " He paused again while 'Sharon' wittered down the phone, "They're free to tell the last two they're fired, and that they're the firing squad. Thank you Sharon." He put the phone down and shook his head. "Getting quality help these days is so difficult. How may I be of service?"

"I just popped by to see if you had any work going, well, anything you wanted stolen that is. That was it really: I heard that you're back in business so to speak there's and that there's an exhibition of Aztec treasures down at the Gotham art museum." Selina stated.

"Nah. I looked into that last week. The whole thing is a bunch of vaguely convincing fakes. 'Genuine replicas' whatever that means. The real stuff is in an astoundingly well guarded vault beneath an army base somewhere on the West Coast. I wouldn't waste your time with it. I'll let you know if I have a job that's worthy of you." He grinned a condescending grin at her as she stood up.

"Well, sorry to have bothered you." As she turned to walk out, she turned her head to Penguin, "and no staring at my behind. It could be dangerous." She smiled again and left.

"Wouldn't dream of it dear" muttered Oswald. He returned to his thoughts as peace once again descended on his office" That's the other problem with this city," he muttered to himself, "super criminals and super heroes by the bucket load. I'm surprised there's any normal people here to rob." Never mind, back to the job in hand he thought. He reached for a bundle of papers regarding several banks in the city and started flipping through them.

Before he could get onto any serious planning, a flunkey knocked on the door. "Mail for Mr. Factoid, Mr Cobblepot." The henchman handed a wad of envelopes to Owsald and left. Penguin started flipping through the letters. "Junk, bill, work application, more junk." He stopped at a generally nondescript letter. It had a small green question mark in the corner. "Riddler. What does that smug lanky know-it-all want, and how does the little git know where I am?"he grumbled to the world in general. He flopped down and ripped the envelope open and started to read:

"Oh Henry, or should I say Oswald, what are you planning? I do hope you're not going to something that involves large profit and not include me? I know every single little move you make so unless you want me to inform certain authorities of your plans, you are going give me a cut of the take. Your ever loving friend, Riddler."

Penguin ripped the letter to shreds and threw it in the bin. "That oh-so-clever little turd! I'll make him eat his bloody bowler hat." He shouted at the empty room.

Penguin turned to the window. Either he's got spy cams watching everything I do, or some bugger's been talking. Or both. He turned on the theatre PA system, "Listen up lads and lasses. Some sly little weasel's been talking to that ponce The Riddler. When I find out who the rat is, they're going to find themselves nailed into the shape of a question mark on top of the Wonder Tower. Do I make myself clear? So if you're the squealer and you want to live, I suggest you leave now and keep on running, because if I find you this side of Bludhaven, you can consider yourself very dead. Have a nice day." He thumped the off button and slouched in his chair.

Henchmen! They were more trouble than they were worth. Loyalty meant bugger-all to some of them. So much for Henry Factoid: that little ruse was obviously up. Time for a new identity and a semi-new start. He picked up his phone, "Sharon, is that old paint factory still up for sale? Good. Would you buy it in the name of," He flipped through unused aliases in his mind, "Dibden Curlew. Thank you my dear." He put the phone down and looked glumly at his of these days's I'll confuse the hell out of the Batman and all of the other freaks in this city, I'll do something legit. He paused at this thought. Nahh, where's the fun in that? 'Before I move the operation, we'll see if that green suited nonce gets wind of it. If he does, then Sharon's the leak.' He thought.

He had started to poke about for listening devices when something small and dark came straight through the window, sending shards of glass everywhere.

"Christ!" he yelled "What the bloody hell was that?"

The small dark thing had hit the door, and had started beeping. He ducked behind the desk and peeked over. It was a baterang! "Does everybody know where I bloody am? What's the point in having a secret identity if it ain't a bloody secret?" he shouted.

He was interrupted when the baterang unexpectedly burst into a rather squeaky song:

Hark the sneaky Penguin Sing

And I know what he's doing

He's been planning corrupt schemes

Making money by foul means

If he thinks his plans will work

If it makes him smile and smirk

I know what will make him frown

The Batman's going to send him down

If he thinks he's going to win

The Penguin had better think again.

The song ended and the beeping started again. "The Bat's gone out of his tiny mind. Either that or it's that stupid Joker playing tricks."

The beeping rate suddenly sped up, causing the Penguin to duck back down behind the desk. The beeping stopped, and a tinny voice said "Merry Christmas Cobblepot!". The baterang exploded, taking a large chunk out of the door.

"What the hell was that all about?" Oswald asked the empty room.

* * *

On a rooftop, not too far away, Batman was crouched next to an unconscious henchman. He patted the slumbering man on the head. "Why thank you. You've been most helpful." He said.

He stood up and operated his comm set, "Alfred, job done. I'm coming home."

"Very good sir. Was the Penguin pleased to see you?"

"Let's say he'll be wondering what's happening." responded Mr. Wayne.

"So you've sent strange and seemingly pointless Christmas messages to two of your most dangerous adversaries. Was it worth the effort?"

"An enemy who's on a slightly less even keel is generally slightly easier to deal with, so I just caused a little pointless confusion."

"Right you are Master Bruce." Said Alfred with a little uncertainty.

Bruce smiled as he cut the comm. Set and operated the Batwing's remote systems. It had been a good evening.

**The End.**


End file.
